Obama Tax Cut Plan is Patriotic and a Win-Win For Both Parties

There is a belief in America that wealth is good, that it should not be punished, and that we need to give businesses incentives so they can employ workers. There is some validity to this argument; businesses are not evil (for the most part) they want to employ workers, but only if they need to. If a company can produce goods at a higher profit with less workers why wouldn’t they? They would have less people on payroll thereby reducing their costs. It makes perfect sense but then why do Americans insist that businesses create jobs. Well, they are partly right.

Creating jobs is not a company’s main objective, the bottom line is. Making money for their shareholders is the goal and if that means laying off people, then so be it. Despite this argument businesses still create jobs, regardless of their motive, they give people the ability to become independent. Settling this dispute we enter a new one, what is the responsibility of businesses to our community writ large? What do they owe us in return for the ability to make profits and lay off workers if they need to? Taxation

Taxation is one of the forms that businesses can compensate the American people for their profit-seeking motives. For the sake of the argument let’s accept that they have every right to place profits over people, that if they need to they will fire workers in order to increase their profit margins. Under this contract we then have a right to tax them. For the thousands of unemployed people, who have been hurt by the private sector, we collect taxes. Corporate profits are at all time high, but unemployment is at an all time low. How can this be? It depends who you ask.

Republicans will say companies are strangled by regulations. Democrats will claim there is too little demand for products. If companies were burned by regulations then they wouldn’t be making profits. Regulations hurt a company’s ability to make money, and that clearly hasn’t been happening. Consumption, however makes up 70% of our GDP. We are dependent on people’s ability to buy. President Obama’s plan to keep the Bush tax cuts on those making less than $250,000 is a way to make sure that people will continue to consume. It’s a win-win for Republicans and Democrats. We ensure that the large portion of Americans continue with less taxation. Those who make over $250,000 are doing just fine, in fact they have done better than the average American in the last decade. They can afford to give more in taxes. In fact they have an obligation.

Taxation is not tyranny; it is a duty of every citizen. We need to remember that we are the government. It is not an alien body because we have a say in what our elected leaders do. Unfortunately we don’t have a say in what a corporate boardroom decides. Democracy is in government and those who have money threaten it. We can tame this through taxation.